Richard Serra/Sculpture

Library Journal

The recent controversy over Serra's ``Tilted Arc'' in New York City's Federal Plaza has focused attention on the artist's large-scale public works and on the purpose of such works. This catalog of a 1986 MOMA exhibition is a more balanced look at the whole range of Serra's oeuvre. The disclaimer over the content of the Crimp essay on public art, with its ironic view of the ``redefinition of the site of a work of art as the site of a political struggle,'' is amended by the idea of MOMA as a public forum for diverse views on contemporary art. The nature of Serra's work is to involve the viewer in the process itself, an interaction between artist and viewer. Unfortunately, the numerous black-and-white illustrations fail to bring alive the power and excitement described in the text. Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., New York